Blue-Tongue members Nash and Joel Edgerton, Spencer Susser, David Michôd, Luke Doolan and Kieran Darcy-Smith get their fair share of column inches, however hardly a peep is ever heard from founding member Tony Lynch.
Not a filmmaker like the rest of the Blue-Tongue crew, Lynch has been working as a stuntman, and these days, a stunt coordinator, since 1985. Over this career he's worked on a whole swag of movies like Dark City, Moulin Rouge, The Phantom, The Matrix, Australia, and many of the Blue Tongue films.
And now he's released something of his own; not a film but a book, aimed at stunt performers and actors, titled Stunt Fitness: Physical Conditioning for Film Stunt Work. As the blurb says:
Take a look at any good action movie and what do you see plenty of? Crash! Boom! Bang! Thud! Stuntmen being slammed, bounced and thrown all over the place.Stunt performers must be physically and mentally tough and be able to take the knocks and the hard hits. That's a stuntman's job!Now, that's not to say you should be getting banged-up and smacked around unnecessarily, it's about taking the wrecks in an intelligent way. It's about knowing when to go hard and when to take it easy, padding-up smart, and knowing how to condition your body to cope with the various mechanical stresses and forces placed upon it.
To find out more or to buy the book, check out the Stunt Fitness website.
Lynch has just finished stunt coordinating Brothers in Arms, a new TV series about Sydney's 1984 bikie wars. A teaser trailer for the show, filled with mullets, brooding and pursed lips, is below.
I've also included Nash Edgerton's short film Lucky, which according to this recent article, faked a car with no driver by dressing Tony Lynch up in a foam costume cut in the shape of a car seat and having him drive the car. It's so well done it's hard to tell even after knowing the trick.